Layout Gurus, I need help!

Hi everyone! This forum is invaluable. I am in the early stage of my kitchen renovation. I hope that some of you will be so kind to offer opinions on my proposed layout.

First some background:

Our current kitchen is L shaped with refrigerator on the same wall as range. There is a raised peninsula bar off the sink run. The kitchen is on the tiny side 140" by 144" (11'8 range run by 12' width) The sink run is only 96". The kitchen is open to the family room. We would like to keep the seating off the sink run, but are not sure if we should lower this to counter height or keep the raised peninsula. I think the raised bar may be more fitting for our family. We use it almost every other weekend as a buffet server. Thoughts?

We use our dining room for every dinner, but breakfast and lunch tend to be eaten on screened porch off family room or at the kitchen table or bar. My only concern is in this plan we are eliminating the kitchen table, but we are gaining counter space. Should I be concerned?

I have posted several pictures of a proposed layout,, and would love any and all critiques!! my first thought is the trash pullout is too far from clean up area as it is located at far end of range run nearest walkway. Maybe I could switch that with drawer stack next to the super Susan? Then move drawer stack to right of range and have larger deep drawers against the wall by entry?

I think I like the new location of refrigerator. Do I need any kind of landing space by refrigerator? We are a family of 2 vegetarians. We go to farmers market twice a week and feel comfortable with our choice of 30" refrigerator. That wall is 76" long.

After you make an accurate drawing on the graph paper including all dimensions, make a bunch of photocopies to draft on. That was the best thing I did and it saved so much time! I think I have burned through about 40 drafts, most of them just working through "what if..." scenarios that sounded promising but never got past that initial rough drawing.

I agree with williamsem. When designing our kitchen, graph paper, a sharp pencil and eraser were my best friends. I probably made 50-60 layouts. Some of them were stupid and others were plausible choices. Post your measurements, current floorplan, your own thoughts/ideas of a floorplan and help will come running.

You don't have to buy graph paper. Somewhere online you can print some. Sorry I don't have the link but others have have posted about it. It might actually be easier and less expensive to buy a small pack of it. You can use it for furniture layouts, etc.

I use MS PowerPoint. I found online graph paper, saved the image, and pasted it into a PowerPoint file/presentation. I then created templates for things like sinks, ranges with hoods, cooktops with hoods, refrigerators, etc...different sizes and configurations.

Buehl, thanks so much for the tip. I will email you to get the template. That is such a generous offer! Once I settle on the initial layout, I will post for critiques. Currently I am traveling and only have the iPad.

Does anyone have opinions on losing the kitchen table? Would you lose a table (given the other eating areas in home) to gain more prep space and storage?

Why do some people prefer the pennisula bars at the same height of counter?

Oh.. And all this renovation is starting because we had a busted water line to refrigerator flood the entire kitchen. Talk about stressful!! The kitchen was always in our plan, just 12-18 months down the road. Does anyone know if the restoration/mold remediation company determines all lowers need to be removed, is it customary for the insurance company to pay for uppers too?